‘Dead Ahead’ and ‘Ticket to New Year’s’ coming to DVD this February

Two legendary Grateful Dead films, Dead Ahead and Ticket To New Yearâ€™s, are slated for DVD release on February 12, 2013. The DVDs were also included in the 14-DVD box set All The Years Combine: The DVD Collection, released by Shout! Factory in 2012.

To celebrate their 15th anniversary, the Dead played 15 shows at the Warfield in San Francisco, followed by eight concerts at Radio City Music Hall. In addition to their usual two sets, the Dead opened each night with an acoustic set. The final concert fell on Halloween, and was simulcast as a closed-circuit pay-per-view event at 20 movie theaters across the country. Dead Ahead is comprised of songs from the final show and the previous nightâ€™s show, interspersed with comic bits from the Saturday Night Live comedy team of Al Franken and Tom Davis (both big Dead Heads). As Steve Silberman writes in Dead Aheadâ€™s liner notes, â€œthe luminous performances on Dead Ahead, filmed on October 30th and 31st of 1980, captured the Dead at a moment of transformation, when the band took a reckoning of their history through the lens of a marathon run of shows. Recorded in one of the wonders of the modern world â€“ Radio City Music Hall â€“ the performances on Dead Ahead marked the culmination of a monthlong musical odyssey in San Francisco and New York City during which the band stretched the boundaries of over 100 songs, from the newly written â€˜Lost Sailorâ€™ to jug-band tunes they played in coffeehouses like â€˜Monkey and The Engineer.â€™

For the DVDâ€™s original release in 2005, band archivist David Lemieux and audio engineer Jeffrey Norman restored the audio tracks in remastered stereo and diamond-sharp 5.1 surround sound, adding over 50 minutes of bonus material, including powerful performances of â€œShakedown Streetâ€ and â€œHeâ€™s Gone,â€ as well as a ripping acoustic rendition of Weirâ€™s underrated â€œHeaven Help The Fool.â€ All of those special features are included on this reissue.

Ticket to New Yearâ€™s was also a national pay-per-view telecast. Recorded in 1987 at the Oakland Coliseum, Ticket to New Yearâ€™s is two-and-a-half hours of classic Dead. Once again the Dead rose to the occasion and gave the fans in Oakland and many more across the country watching in their living rooms a dynamic and unforgettable show. Performances include â€œBertha,â€ â€œCold Rain and Snow,â€ â€œWhen Push Comes to Shove,â€ â€œBird Song,â€ â€œThe Music Never Stopped,â€ â€œHell in a Bucket,â€ â€œUncle Johnâ€™s Band,â€ â€œLady With a Fan,â€ â€œTerrapin Station,â€ â€œDrums,â€ â€œThe Other One,â€ â€œWharf Rat,â€ â€œThrowing Stones,â€ and many more. Also included on the DVD is a visible lyrics option, bios and a special â€œDead Factsâ€ fan quiz.